


Shall we remake our world?

by Wapwani



Series: Dragon Queen prompt responses [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), dragon queen - Fandom
Genre: Building a family, F/F, Fluff, sequel of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 05:53:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6599287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wapwani/pseuds/Wapwani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Family traditions are important, especially ones you create for yourselves.</p>
<p>Previously posted on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shall we remake our world?

A companion piece to ['Soft, close your eyes'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6100210).

 

Regina had been so tied up with organising Miners’ Day that she hadn’t been home in time to prepare dinner. So Lily and Henry had taken over the kitchen, and Mal had helped, mostly by supervising and refraining from adding extra ginger and mace to everything. 

When Regina did get home, she found Henry and Lily playing chess in the living room, with Mal calling encouragement and instructions as though she were a General directing a battle in the field. The table had been set, the meal was ready to be served as soon as she sat down, her wine already poured, and her kitchen was relatively clean and tidy (considering that her replacement chef’s had been a teenage boy, a woman whose life to date had been one made up more of neglect than nurturing, and a dragon who had only just started to grasp the concept of a dishwasher). She was still growing accustomed to how much of a weight lifted from her shoulders when she stepped through the doors of her home and into the warmth and laughter that filled the rooms now.

Their dinner conversation tonight started with Miners’ Day, then meandered through all the other celebration days from the Enchanted Forest, with Mal and Regina holding forth, reminiscing about the customs of their old home. Both Henry and Lily listened with some interest, but when the topic moved on to celebrations and customs of their current world, Lily grew silent. She sat quietly, staring into her glass of wine, while Henry recalled happy memories - from pumpkin carving with Regina, to waking up to find the tooth fairy _had_ visited in the night. When Henry started talking about favourite Christmases, about coming downstairs at the crack of dawn, still rubbing sleep from his eyes, to find the living room transformed into a treasure trove of lights and garlands and presents, Lily finally spoke.

“Never had one of those.”

“A remote-controlled helicopter?” Henry asked.

Lily shook her head. “A Christmas morning like that. Not that I remember anyway.”

Henry was still young enough that the thought of not having magical memories of Christmas filled him with horror. And he was enough of Regina’s son that the obvious pain in Lily’s face made him stutter to silence. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Lily grinned ruefully. “Ah, it’s not a big deal. I can buy myself all the presents I want now.”

“Christmas is more than presents,” Regina said softly. “That was something I grew to learn here. It’s about…belonging, and sharing, and -“

“And family,” Henry said gently, when his mother’s voice faltered a little.

“Yes. Exactly.” Regina smiled at Henry, filled with thankfulness for this boy who had understood the messages she herself had barely been aware she was sending.

“Sounds nice,” Lily said.

“Maybe this year-“ Regina started to say, but Lily cut her off.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

 

***

 

It was late by the time they had eaten dinner and cleared up, and Lily and Henry had finally finished their chess game. This was not an unusual occurrence - for Mal and Lily to linger so long after dinner that Regina would say “Stay the night,” and they’d make no pretence of wanting to accept her invitation. The spare room was already being referred to as ‘Lily’s room’, and neither Lily nor Henry questioned Mal sharing Regina’s bed.

Henry and Lily went upstairs, leaving Mal and Regina sitting on the couch, talking.

“I am not familiar with the customs of this world,” Mal said thoughtfully, “but I do understand the need to celebrate family.”

“We’ll give Lily a Christmas to remember,” Regina promised.

But then she frowned. With their lives, she couldn’t be sure where they’d be or what would be happening by the time Christmas rolled around. They could very well be embroiled in some sort of attack, or been swept away to another realm, battling for their lives.

“Why wait?” she asked herself, though she spoke out loud.

“Hmm?”

“We can have Christmas now.”

Mal frowned, confused. “Isn’t there a specific day set aside to mark-“

“Yes, but that’s just a spot on the calendar. And calendars change all the time. I say we can have Christmas now.”

Mal grinned. “And you are the Queen. Your word is law.”

“Exactly!”

She sat up, excited, glancing at her watch. “We don’t have much time. We’re going to have to use magic.”

 

***

 

Even though they were two of the most powerful magical beings in the realm, it was a close-run thing to get everything ready before dawn.

There were a few things Regina insisted on doing by hand; she felt that using magic for tasks like decorating, cooking and present wrapping, was cheating somehow. But because of their limited time, they had to use magic to help out. They transported out into the woods to find the perfect tree, and brought it back with them. Regina had gone up into the attic to find all the decorations she’d put away last December, and Mal’s height came in handy to get everything put up around the living room. Although Mal did have some…unusual…ideas about colour choices and placements, they found a way to compromise. 

Regina decided she would prepare a traditional Christmas meal for lunch, but even though her kitchen was very well stocked, the contents of her larder did not extend to a turkey. So they magicked their way into the grocery store, giggling like naughty children as they crept through the dark aisles, filling a cart with all manner of good things to eat. Regina left a large amount of cash on the counter; surely if she paid for the goods they’d taken, it wouldn’t be considered stealing. She allowed that logic to extend to acquiring presents too. The merchants of Storybrooke were going to wake up to gaps in their shelves, piles of cash next to the register, and undisturbed alarms.

They transported back to the mansion with their hoard, and Regina left Mal in charge of wrapping presents while she prepped the lunch. She got everything ready to go in the oven early in the morning - from the turkey to an apple pie for dessert - and went to to find what Mal had managed. Leaving a dragon to her own devices had resulted in some quaintly wrapped presents, involving more fancily-tied ribbons than paper and an over-dependence on gauzy lace. The pile of presents under the tree and the decorations strung throughout the room didn’t have quite the traditional look that Henry was accustomed to, but perhaps this was not a bad thing. They were building new traditions tonight, ones that included Mal, and hopefully, when she woke, Lily too.

It was different, to share these tasks with another person. For so many years, Regina had done this on her own. Creeping silently through the house getting everything in order for when Henry woke. It was pleasant to have someone else with her, someone who laughed easily and looked at things in new and unusual ways, someone who would hold her hand and smile happily at her as they stood back and looked at everything they had accomplished.

“Think she’ll like it?” Regina asked.

Mal reached down and kissed her cheek. “You pour so much love into everything you do for her, Regina. For both of them. They’ll more than like it.”

Regina blinked back tears, and slipped her arm around Mal’s waist.

“Thank you,” she breathed, intending her words of gratitude to cover more than just what Mal had said. “But, there is something missing. Lights.”

For this one time, she’d use magic to create the lights. She wanted this to be special. So she made hundreds of points of brightness appear, glowing with all the colours she could conjure. They sparkled and danced across the ceiling, as though Regina had reached up to the heavens and pulled the stars down into their home.

Mal laughed with delight, and Regina pulled her down onto the carpet.

“Lie down. It looks better that way.” Henry had said that to her one morning, when he was much younger, before he’d learned about the Evil Queen. They had lain on their backs, heads partially under the tree, and giggled at all the twinkling lights.

Mal didn’t giggle like a little child, but she did sigh with pleasure, and draw Regina close to her so she could lay her head upon Mal’s chest. The dragon’s heart beat steadily under her cheek and she could feel the press of her lips against her hair.

 

When Henry and Lily came downstairs in the morning, they found their mothers like that; lying on the carpet in the midst of a brand new Christmas morning, magic lights twinkling overhead, their arms around each other, fast asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> This was another take on the prompt "Accidentally falling asleep together", and is set in the same 'verse as 'Soft, close your eyes'.


End file.
